My Teacher Is An Alien.

Mike Wimmer.

To my sixth grade teacher, Florence Crandall, who told me to write a story.

What would you do if you found out your teacher was an alien?

As I watched, Mr. Smith pressed his fingers against the bottom of his eyes. Suddenly he ran his fingertips to the sides of his head, grabbed his ears, and started peeling off his face!

I gasped. Fortunately, the horrible noises coming from the room drowned it out. I wanted to get up and run, but I was too terrified to move.

I started to shake instead. Whatever Mr. Smith was, I was pretty sure the face he was slowly uncovering wasn't anything that had been born on Earth!

CHAPTER ONE.

Missing-.

One Sixth-Grade Teacher.

"Hey, Geekoid!" yelled Duncan Dougal as he s.n.a.t.c.hed Peter Thompson's book out of his hand. "Why do you read so much? Don't you know how to watch TV?"

Poor Peter. I could see that he wanted to grab the book back from Duncan. But I also knew that if he tried, Duncan would cream him.

Sometimes I wonder if Duncan's mother dropped him on his head when he was a baby. I mean, something must have made him decide to spend his life making other people miserable. Otherwise why would he spend so much of his time picking on a kid like Peter Thompson? Peter never bothers anyone. Heck, the only thing he really wants is to be left alone so he can read whatever book he has his nose stuck in at the moment.

That doesn't seem like too much to ask to me. But Duncan takes Peter's reading as a personal insult.

So here it was, the first day back from spring vacation-we hadn't even gone into the school yet-and I could tell by the look on Duncan Dougal's face that the spring fight season was about to begin.

I clutched my piccolo case to my chest and watched as Peter's pale face began to turn red. Peter blushed at almost anything. He was tall and thin and wore thick gla.s.ses. And he was the smartest person I had ever met-grown-ups included.

The problem was, it was all book smarts. Peter had absolutely no idea how to deal with a creep like Duncan. Actually, neither did I. If I did, I would have stopped him. But the one time I had tried to come between Duncan and Peter, I ended up with a black eye myself.

Duncan claimed it was an accident, of course. "Susan just jumped right in front of my fist," he said as if I was the one who had done something wrong. To tell you the truth, I think Duncan punched me on purpose. Most guys wouldn't hit a girl. But Duncan doesn't mind. It was his way of warning me to keep my nose out of his business.

As I watched Duncan squinting down at Peter, it occurred to me that sixth grade can be a dangerous place if you don't watch out.

Stacy Benoit was standing a few feet away from Peter, pressed against the school wall and looking nervous. Stacy is this incredibly good kid, who never gets in trouble ever. She hates fights even more than I do.

She had just started edging her way toward me when Duncan ran his foot through a puddle and splashed dirty water all over Peter's jeans.

"Cut it out, Duncan," said Peter.

"Cut it out, Duncan," mimicked Duncan in a whiny, singsong voice.

Anyone who knew Duncan could see he was gearing up for a fight. But it wasn't necessarily going to be with Peter, since Peter usually just took whatever Duncan dished out. I figured Duncan was using him as a warm-up. So I was a little surprised when he tossed Peter's book into the puddle.

Even Duncan should have known that was something you just don't do to Peter.

"Oops!" he said maliciously. "I dropped it."

I heard Stacy gasp as Peter launched himself off the wall and bashed his head into Duncan's stomach. Within seconds the two of them were rolling around on the ground.

"I hate it when this happens," said Stacy as the boys surrounded Peter and Duncan in a shouting, cheering circle.

The fight hadn't gone on more than ten seconds when a tall blond man came pushing through the crowd. Without saying anything, he grabbed the two fighters and hauled them to their feet.

Wow! I thought when I saw him lift the two of them right off the ground. That guy is really strong.

"Stop!" he said. Then he gave them each a shake and set them back down on their feet.

"Peter started it," said Duncan.

He's such a creep he probably didn't even know he was lying.

Peter wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. "I did not," he said sullenly.

I could see that his hand was trembling.

"No more," said the tall man, as if he really didn't care who started it. "Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," mumbled Peter. I wanted to shake him. He made it sound as if the whole thing had been his fault.

"Do you understand?" said the tall man again, looking directly at Duncan.

"Sure," said Duncan. "I got it."

"Good," said the tall man. Then he turned on his heel and marched back into the school.

Duncan made a face at the man's back, then wandered off to find someone else to pick on.

"Who was that?" asked Peter as I handed him his soggy book.

"Who knows? I never saw him before. He's probably a new sub. Come on-let's go inside."

Peter and I were usually the first ones into school-but not by much. Our whole cla.s.s went in early. That's because our teacher, Ms. Marie Schwartz, was so totally great. The thing I liked best about having her was that she was the only teacher in Kennituck Falls Elementary who always did a play with her cla.s.s. I've always wanted to be an actress when I grow up. But until sixth grade, I had never had a chance to find out what it was like to be onstage. The play would be our last major project, and we had planned to start rehearsals right after spring vacation.

Unfortunately, when we got to our room, Ms. Schwartz was nowhere to be seen. The tall blond man was standing beside her desk, talking to a short, red-faced man who had almost no hair-our school princ.i.p.al, Dr. Bleekman.

Where was Ms. Schwartz?

Peter and I went to our desks. I wasn't happy. I had a bad feeling about this whole thing.

"The sub is handsome," whispered Stacy, who had come in behind us.

"I suppose so," I said grudgingly. "Where do you suppose Ms. Schwartz is?"

Stacy shrugged. "Maybe she's sick. Or maybe her plane didn't make it back on time. That happened to my third grade teacher once."

I nodded. That was OK. It was disappointing to come back to someone besides Ms. Schwartz, but I could cope with it for a day or two.

The other kids came into the room. Because Dr. Bleekman was there, everyone was super quiet. The bell rang, and we took our places.

"Good morning, cla.s.s," said Dr. Bleekman. "I want to introduce Mr. John Smith. Mr. Smith will be your teacher for the rest of the year."

The rest of the year! I couldn't believe my ears! What happened to Ms. Schwartz?

Without intending to, I asked the question out loud.

CHAPTER TWO.

Note of Doom.

Dr. Bleekman glared at me. "Susan, if you have something to say, I expect you to raise your hand."

Well, ex-cuuuuse me! I thought. But there was no sense in making things worse than they already were, so I raised my hand. When Dr. Bleekman pointed at me I said-as politely as I could-"What happened to Ms. Schwartz?"

"That is a private matter," replied Dr. Bleekman.

What was that supposed to mean? Was she pregnant? Did she have some horrible disease? Did she get fired? And whatever it was, why hadn't she warned us? Why hadn't she said goodbye?

Without thinking about what I was doing, I stood up and said, "I want to know where she is!"

Dr. Bleekman looked at me in surprise. His cheeks got redder. "Do you know the meaning of the word private, Miss Simmons?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," I said quietly and slipped back into my seat. While I sat there, fuming, Dr. Bleekman blathered on about how he expected us to behave for our new teacher. Then he turned us over to Mr. Smith and left the room.

As I watched him go, I wondered if Dr. Bleekman had secretly fired Ms. Schwartz. I had always suspected he didn't like her-mostly because she didn't do things "by the book." I had heard them arguing about it once when I came back to school to get some papers I had left behind.

"Ms. Schwartz, I must ask you to show more respect for the curriculum," Dr. Bleekman had been saying when I walked into the room.

Boy, did that set Ms. Schwartz off. "Can't you respect the fact that the kids are learning?" she asked angrily. She grabbed the sides of her head in frustration. Clumps of her frizzy black hair stuck out between her fingers. "Listen, Horace. The kids will get more out of six weeks of doing a play than six months of dittos and workbooks."

Suddenly I wondered if having Mr. Smith meant that we wouldn't be doing our play.

I began waving my hand in the air again.

"Yes, Miss Simmons?" asked Mr. Smith.

Miss Simmons again. Were we going to have to talk like that for the rest of the year?

"Are we still going to do our play?" I asked.

Mr. Smith lifted one blond eyebrow in astonishment. "Play?" he said. "Of course we're not going to do a play. We're here to work!"

I sank back into my seat. Sixth grade was going bad faster than a dead fish on a hot day.

I could hear the other kids start to murmur their protests. Mr. Smith slapped his ruler against his desk.

"Dr. Bleekman hired me to straighten this cla.s.s out. I can see now that what he told me about you was correct. Things have gotten completely out of control in this room."

Actually, that was only half true. Our room wasn't out of control; it just wasn't under Dr. Bleekman's thumb. Since most of us had already spent five years in rooms where the teachers did things Dr. Bleekman's way, we knew very well what he wanted a room to be like.

No question about it: Ms. Schwartz's room didn't fit the bill. But as far as we were concerned, things were going just fine. And not just because we were having a good time. We were also learning more than we ever had before.

My father claimed we were learning and having a good time for the same reason-Ms. Schwartz knew how to make things interesting.

For example, on the first day of school Ms. Schwartz stood at the front of the room and held up the sixth grade reading book, Rockets and Flags (popularly known as Rodents and Fleas).

"This," she said, "is not a good book." She held it away from her with two fingers, like a soggy tissue, and dropped it into the bottom drawer of her desk. "I know a better one," she said. "In fact, I know hundreds." Then she pulled a huge cardboard box from under her desk and started pa.s.sing around stacks of paperback novels for us to choose from.

We spent the rest of the year reading real books. Sometimes we all read the same one, sometimes we all read something different. I remember mornings when we spent the entire reading period arguing about what some character should have done. Kids who had never liked reading before were really getting into it.

Unfortunately, Mr. Smith didn't believe in that kind of thing. In fact, the first thing he did after taking attendance that morning was pa.s.s out copies of Rockets and Flags.

Ms. Schwartz always read out loud to us, sometimes twice a day. She read wonderful books like The Hobbit and The Sword in the Stone.

When someone asked Mr. Smith if he was going to read out loud, he gave him a funny look and said it was "a waste of time."

Well, you get the picture. Over the next few weeks Mr. Smith straightened us out all right. But you know how boring a straight line is. We had no more surprises. We pretty much stopped laughing in school. Things weren't terrible-just awfully grim.

Even the playground wasn't so much fun as it had been. Oh, Mr. Smith did keep Duncan Dougal from beating kids up. But he almost went nuts the first time he caught one of us playing a radio. Radios and tape players were banned from the playground. Mr. Smith didn't just hate rock music; he hated all music! I could see him shiver every time I picked up my piccolo and left the room for my music lesson.

After the third week of this I said something about it to my music teacher, Mr. Bam-Boom Bamwick. (Actually, his first name is Milton. But everyone calls him Bam-Boom because of his preference for thundering marches.) Mr. Bamwick sighed. "Susan, you have to understand that not everyone appreciates the finer things in life," he said.